


Natasha And The Boys

by pb_and_j_slaps



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Children, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint Barton, F/F, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Kid Bruce Banner, Kid Clint Barton, Kid Fic, Kid Steve Rogers, Kid Thor (Marvel), Kid Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov & Tony Stark Friendship, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Odin (Marvel)'s A+ Parenting, Pining, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective Natasha Romanov, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23852548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pb_and_j_slaps/pseuds/pb_and_j_slaps
Summary: After a mission gone wrong Natasha Romanov is left to look after her teammates while trying to not have the world destroyed.The only problem? She’s a Super Assassin with no babysitting training or skills.Thankfully there's Pepper Potts, who Natasha definitely just considers a friend. Absolutely.*THIS WORK WILL BE ON HIATUS AS OF AUGUST 27TH 2020*
Relationships: Natasha Romanov & Avengers Team, Pepper Potts/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 5
Kudos: 102





	1. Of All Days

On all the days it had to be on, the team decides to screw up on a Monday.

They were infiltrating a lair where some of Victor Von Doom's lackeys were selling illegal doomsday weapons on the black market. Natasha had gone inside to see if she could get any information, leaving the rest of her team to take down the guards.

It was pretty easy, almost as if Doctor Doom just gave up on the programming and had some intern with a regular intelligence code it out for him and call it a day.

The biggest concern was when, after she downloaded the data onto a USB drive, the whole place was quiet. The only thing she could probably acknowledge was the wind outside, but that's because it was about mid-September and autumn was around the corner.

In combat though, no one is just silent. Not even the Avengers, with the machine guns in Tony's suit and the swinging of Thor's hammer to the Hulk's relentless smashing, the quietest person there would probably be Clint. But that was only if he lost his hearing aids again and lost his ability to hear.

And yet, there was simply nothing. She pulled out a gun and left the computer room, slowly, quietly. The halls were empty except for the sleeping bodies that attacked her when she first entered. Nothing. The doors to the outside world were just wide open.

She closed her eyes and sighed, if she found the boys in any critical condition she would strangle them. She walked right out and examined the world. Leaves on the trees were turning those pretty red-orange colors. There were so many on the floor that you could probably make a leaf pile to jump in. 

And then she noticed the unconscious children on the floor, and the powered off Iron Man suit.

Her heart stopped for a moment, where had these children come from? Why was Tony currently nonresponsive? Why do they look so much like-

Oh. She realized what had happened and mentally scolded herself for taking so long. To relive the situation at hand. Hesitantly she walked up to the metal suit. There was probably a good chance Tony walked this off ok. But she wouldn't know until...

He did not, in fact, walk it off okay. 

Instead of the usual obnoxious billionaire was a messy haired little boy, asleep like nothing in the world could harm him. And for once, Natasha didn't know what to do. She turned around and began to think.

Should she wait for the children to wake up and somehow explain the situation to them? Or could she call for back up and have someone else assist her? Would they just be taken away from her until they went back to normal? Perhaps it was best of her to just bring the ship/carry them to the ship and just drive the Quinjet herself? Would they recognize her or just have 5 meltdowns in the plane-

Something very small tapped against her left leg, Natasha turned around and saw a (very) tiny boy look up at her with the prettiest ocean blue eyes. "Excuse me ma'am, but who are you and where are we?" The little boy looked up at her sweetly. Natasha looked at his clothes and saw the Captain America suit, it looked so small and yet struggled to fit him nontheless.

She looked at the rest of the group and saw the rest of them were awake now. They all looked at her with big innocent eyes and confused expressions. A tiny voice could be heard from the Iron Man suit asking to be let out.

She cleared her throat and spoke up, she was a double agent. Playing Mary Poppins with her teammates should be easy. She gave them a small smile "I hope you all enjoyed your nap! Uh, your parents actually all went away on vacation and I'm your caretaker until they get back." 

These were innocent children, she thought as she grabbed the Iron Man suit (she didn't know how to remove Tony and just figured JARVIS would know how when they came back to the tower.

She heard Tony speak up as she lifted him, "Are you sure lady? My mommy and daddy argue a lot." Natasha cringed on the inside as she thought of how Tony once mentioned his neglect from both of his parents, ignoring the comment she turned towards the rest of the children "Well, come on then boys. We're gonna play 'Follow the Leader' back to our spaceship. We don't have a car at the moment." 

She hoped the little game had worked as she started walking towards the Quinjet, carrying the metal suit on her back. By the time they all got there the young children were amazed at what they saw (Steve especially). She let them all in before placing Tony on the floor "Sorry, I don't know how to get you out of this right now." He shrugged as a sort of understanding in response 

"Okay, before we start the ship we need some rules. One: stay seated where you are. Two: Do not touch anything and Three: Please do not disturb me while I'm driving the plane back home. Alright?" She glanced down at the boys.

Thor nodded his head, and she heard Steve mumbled a 'Yes ma'am'. She looked at Tony and saw him nod in agreement. Clint just looked confused (although Natasha noticed his hearing aids were missing and figured he lost them again) and Bruce…

The poor thing was shuddering. Natasha mentally slapped herself in the forehead as she realized the boy wasn't hulked out anymore. Instead he had on just the ripped pants, although they were big on him the poor boy was shirtless and shivering.

Natasha went to the back and got a blanket. She knelt down and wrapped it around Bruce, he didn't dare look her in the eyes. 

She got up and started the ship. The flight home was quiet for once, and although she enjoyed how they all listened to her for once she felt a little lonely. Usually the trips back to Avengers Tower were filled with arguments and playful banter. She sighed as they entered through the private garage, hoping this would all blow over soon. \------------------------- 

After she managed to park the Quinjet she turned around to look at the boys. "Alright, here's the deal. When we get inside you're all going to sit down and watch some tv. I need to make a phone call." The children nodded, and the spy noticed how Clint examined the others before copying their motions. 

"What about me!" She heard Tony shout inside the Iron Man suit. Oh right. "I'm going to have to carry you for a little bit more. There's a machine in the Tower that removes," She hesitated for a moment, deciding to have a little fun. "That only removes machines from good boys." The billionaires eyes widened as he heard this information.

"Yep, so we better head inside so I can fix you and you all can go watch cartoons." She said as she picked up the boy and began leading them all into the elevator. They all had rooms on one floor, team bonding was necessary and they just decided to do that and call it a day. Eventually it did work but now they all just tolerate each other.

The elevator made a 'ding' sound before opening, as they all entered JARVIS spoke through. "Good evening Avengers, I hope the mission went smoothly?" The AI spoke, making the young children look around. Natasha smiled before explaining to them.

"That voice you guys hear is my friend. He's a robot that lives in here and helps you if you need anything." She gave an example, "JARVIS turn on the TV please." The children gasped as the television immediately turned on some Spanish soap opera Tony liked watching.

"Hey! That kind of sounds like my friend Mr.Jarvis." Tony realized as Natasha took a break from carrying the suit around her arm and placed him gently on the floor. She grabbed the remote and changed it to some cartoon about a boy and his yellow dog. She told them to sit down and explained where she was going.

"I'm going to go get Tony out of his suit. I'm having JARVIS keep track of you, if any of you misbehave he'll tell me and you will go stand in the corner. If it happens again I'm putting you in the suit." 

She wouldn't really do that. Obviously that's going to traumatize them and then she'll have a whole other problem to take care of. But they listened, and as she picked up Tony again and stepped inside the elevator she overheard Thor gasp in excitement at the show and began asking the others about it.

She walked up to the lab entrance and put in her code. "J, do you know how to remove Tony's suit without destroying it?" She asked the AI as she placed him down onto a table. "Of course Miss Romanov, Mister Stark has assigned me with these options since his first Mark 1 design." Natasha could have sworn the AI was sassing her, but brushed it off as she didn't really have a plan on what to do if he was.

She was given instructions to stand the suit on its legs and reassured Tony that everything was okay as the boy could be heard making some noises of protest. At last the suit came off and Natasha had to catch him as the little boy slipped out. When they were leaving she felt Tony slip his hand into hers. 

And she let him.

As they went back to the (living room??) main room she was surprised to find out the team had listened. She smiled proudly as they had managed to stay put on the couch. She sat Tony down next to Clint as she stepped into the kitchen to make a phone call.

She pulled out her phone and hesitated. Did Natasha really have to do this? She was a trained spy, she could handle babysitting the other members until they returned back to normal. And then she looked back at them in the main room. Sweet and innocent and completely unaware of the dangerous world.

Nothing in her extensive years of training could prepare her for this. Children were brought to the Red Room and left as a little drop of red in the world. She needed the help, it was okay for her to ask every once in a while now.

She called Pepper. As she heard the phone ringing she cleared her throat. Ever since she meet the woman undercover she'd felt…weird. A good weird, but she never knew how to describe it.

The call was picked up, "Hello? Is everything alright Natasha?" The spy's mind went blank, Natasha didn't know if she should explain everything over the phone or just bring Pepper over.

She went with the second option.

"Uh, actually it's an emergency…But if you're busy I completely understand. I'm sure you're in a meeting right about now for the company anyways. Actually maybe I should call back-" Pepper cut Natasha off "Oh no! Actually I'm on my break right now. Is everything okay?" 

Natasha made an awkward face. "Uh, well not really. I don't know what to do right now, and I want to shower but something happened to the rest of the team and uh, since you're usually so organized about things I figured you could help me?" The strawberry blond took a couple of seconds to comprehend the question.

"Yeah, of course. I'll come over right now." Natasha could hear some background movements and conversations as Pepper paused for a moment "Do you want to tell me right now or should I wait?" She asked after a couple of moments.

She witnessed Clint hit Steve and saw the eyes of the super soldier glisten up. The face of a total meltdown about to begin.

"Actually I would tell you right now but Clint just hit Steve and now Steve's crying. Stay safe coming over here."

She hung up the phone before Pepper could respond as she walked over to the group to ask them what as she plucked up tiny Steve into her arms on the other couch and rocked him back and fourth.

_______________________________

When Pepper did finally arrive the boys were beginning to get hungry. She sat them all down in the dinner table and brought out some cereal for them to eat. Children were very picky, this she knew from when she visited Laura and the kids over the years and how they would eat very few things.

But children also like colors and sugar. So here she was, trying to feed them some sugary cereal she saw Thor and Clint eat as adults. Oddly enough though, Bruce was the one who was picky about it.

"What is this?" He mumbled as she gave him his little bowl. "It's cereal. We don't have a lot of food for little boys so I'm feeding you this until we go shopping." She saw the boy play with his food, "Do I have to eat it?" Natasha fought back the urge to roll her eyes at the young scientist.

But then the boy looked at her through his thick curls and she sighed, "Have at least one bite of your cereal. If you don't like it then I'll find you something else." She saw him smile for a moment before mumbling again. "You sound like my mommy." And then she saw him eat it.

The react was worth a chuckle but she held back as to not upset the boy. There was no way she could risk a tiny hulk out. The boy made a face of displeasure before grabbing a napkin and spitting the chewed up cereal in there.

"I don't think I like that cereal very much." She nodded and grabbed the bowl. As she started to walk away she made a little motion to encourage him to walk with her.

The little boy followed, she saw him look down as he played with the large sweater she gave him (Natasha made a note to go shopping for some clothes later.) "I'm sorry for not eating it." Natasha just replied "It's alright. Is there any reason why you don't like it?" She saw him make another grossed out face. "Too sweet." He replied.

Natasha did giggle at that. "That's alright I don't like it either."

As they entered the kitchen they saw the elevator door open. Bruce gasped as he hid behind Natasha. She saw Pepper walking out and looking around for a few moments before she noticed Natasha.

"Hi! Sorry I couldn't get here quicker, traffic was really bad today. What happened to the team?" She quickly explained as she set her purse down on the counter. Natasha looked down at Bruce before grabbing his hand, he made a noise of protest and Natasha looked at him again. "Nat?" She heard Pepper say in concern from across the counter. 

"Oh uh, right. Why don't I just show you." She walked out, still in her Black Widow uniform with the shaky hands of Bruce following behind her. She heard Pepper gasp out loud as the curly haired toddler clutched the back of Natasha's calf, looking at the floor once again.

Pepper bent down as she looked at the little boy. "Hello Doctor Banner. Or should I call you Bruce now?" She extended her hand in a form of greetings. Bruce peeked out and saw her hand, he hesitated before walking behind Natasha and shaking Pepper's hand.

She saw how the only thing he had on was a large sweater that basically covered his whole body. "Are they all like this?" She glanced up at Natasha before standing again. "Yeah, including Tony." Pepper's eyes widened and she looked at Bruce "Can you show me where your friends are?" 

The little boy nodded before leading her away. Natasha sighed as she followed them, but was glad at the human company she finally had.

The 'click' of Pepper's heels could be heard as the three of them walked down the hallway. Before long they heard the chatter of the other boys in the dining room.

Natasha cleared her voice as the boys looked up at the strange new lady. "Boys, this is my friend Pepper Potts. She's going to be helping me take care of you guys." She saw how Tony got all red in the face when he saw Pepper.

"Are you an angel?" He asked her, as if it were a chain reaction the other boys started to agree with him and ask her the same questions. Natasha smiled as Pepper was taken back by the question he asked. "Uh, no. But thank you for that comment anyways Tony." The freckled face girl smiled as Tony whispered to the rest of the group 'She knows my name!!!"

The girls chuckled before Pepper turned to Natasha. "Go take a break. I'll set up some stuff and order it online from JARVIS, in the meantime I'll watch them to make sure they don't get hurt."

Natasha nodded at her friend, gave her a quick thanks, and left to her room to go and shower. 

_____________________________________

As Natasha left her room to go check on everyone she heard Steve and Tony arguing in the background. 'I guess some things never change.' She thought as she turned the corner.

"Well that's what my mom says! And I can prove it because I do that sometimes when I'm too busy playing!!" "Yeah but she probably told you that so you could eat!!" As she entered the room she saw Thor and Clint coloring on the floor and Pepper in the kitchen with Bruce again.

Oh right, she never made him the food. She sighed as she walked over to the kitchen.

Low and behold there was a tiny Bruce Banner, fully changed into something toddler sized and watching Pepper Potts make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, hiccuping like crazy.

Pepper looked at Natasha and blushed a little "I didn't know that's why you took him to the kitchen for earlier. After the clothes came in he decided to change in the bathroom. And then Thor pointed out the funny noises he was making. And-" She tossed the knife in the sink, and then apologized quickly as she saw Bruce flinch. 

"-here we are now." She sighed as she gave the sandwich to Bruce. He let out a little 'thank you're before putting the plate in the sink and walking away, eating the sandwich and going over to the rest of the little avengers. Natasha noticed how Clint pointed to the food and Bruce gave him a little piece.

Natasha sighed as she looked at Pepper in a defeated way, "Look Pepper, I have no idea how to take care of children. If…if you don't mind do you think you could-" Pepper patted Natasha's back as if she already expected this question.

"Don't worry. I already called the company and told them I'd work from home for a while. I just told them Iron Man was in a little accident from a mission and needed some help for a while." Natasha rose an eyebrow "Well, technically you're not wrong." 

They looked at the little bunch of children, and saw Tony and Steve walk up to them. They both had angry looks on their faces as they began talk about the problem.

Natasha groaned, this was going to take a while.


	2. Two And A Half Bunk Beds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha and Pepper have a little bonding moment, and the boys discuss the 'good' parents in their lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO sorry for delaying the third chapter to this series. I've been caught up in online classes for school and I feel like the chapters should be a little bit longer. 
> 
> Criticism is welcomed!!!

The day started off as normal as you'd expect. Natasha had slept in her living quarters while Pepper was staying in one of the guest rooms. She had her own room on another floor but this was easier as the little boys had the energy of a bar of sugar.

Natasha and Pepper were ...struggling, Clint was finally able to get his hearing aids and felt the need to scream every five minutes even after Natasha scolded him and put him in the corner. Tony, still being a mechanical genius, was beginning to grab at the act machines he made as an adult and started to mess with the wiring on the insides.

Thor was a whole other problem as children on Asgard were raised completely different than children on earth. He managed to grab the knives from the kitchen and demanded to sword fight the rest of his friends, normally Natasha would just watch in amusement and wonder (The Red Room would do similar things, only more rated R and a LOT more blood) but decided to help take these away from Thor when Bruce began hiding in random places from Thor and his knifes until someone noticed and they all had to search for him.

Even then the tiny god would try and look for alchohol to drink, this made Pepper freak out and when she asked him about it later on he simply said "Most children start drinking when we're six so we can start to handle the substances when we're older." 

She almost fainted, and Natasha thought it was best to just pour the rest of the gross liquids in the sink and just throw away the bottles. It was the least she could do for Pepper as the freckled faced woman was constantly multitasking her work and co-babysitting the rest of her friends coworkers.

The only one who seemed to be doing okay was little Steve, thank god for the strict parenting rules in the 40's. The little boy was always asking Natasha and Pepper if they needed any help with just about anything they were doing. The worst he would do was argue with the others but he had good intentions. 

Once, Clint was making some weird comments about a VERY strangely drawn girl in a movie (the film itself was made in the 50's though so maybe Steve had recognized the cartoon characters that interacted with human people) and Steve asked him to stop because girls found that uncomfortable sometimes and, long story short, the five boys were discussing the things they should say to girls and things they shouldn't say. Steve leading the conversation and writing it (very messily) on a piece of lined paper that Pepper gave him.

In the end they all gave it to Natasha for scientific reasons to see if she agreed with their list as another opinion. She smiled as she read through the list, finding some of the notes to be very sweet and even showing it to Pepper later on in the day.

As Pepper sat them all down in the dining hall she went back to the kitchen to help Natasha with the cleaning. They washed the dishes in silence before Natasha spoke up "Have you…ever wanted kids?" Pepper thought for a moment before responding "Well, yeah. Maybe one day but not right now, I don't really have time for relationships. The company is going great and I'm honestly happy with where I am right now. Seeing as these five boys are a complete handful I might be changing my mind though." Natasha nodded, not very satisfied with the answer but in a way she didn't know how to describe.

"How about you?" Pepper spoke softly, and for a second the super spy hesitated.

She had been sterile for quite a few years now. It was a requirement for graduating the Red Room, your main priority should be yourself and the goal from your opponents. A child in any way, shape, or form would get in the way of that. And for the longest time she believed that statement.

But that was before she met Clint and joined SHEILD, where she was shown kindness and trust in Laura and their children. Before she realized that maybe she could let out her emotions a little, she remembers telling Loki about how crying was for children. But oh how that escalated, now she was basically roommates with her best friend and some of the most powerful people on Earth, their relationships were awkward and the tension in the room could be cut with a knife but it was getting better, slowly, but it was progress.

Here were those same roommates, suddenly half her size with no idea on how cruel the world could be.

Nurture them right and they grow into beautiful things, neglect them and they wilt away with every wonderful thing rotting away from you.

And suddenly children didn't seem like such a ridiculous idea.

"Natasha?" She heard Pepper call out to her loudly. She shook her head for a second before responding, "Sorry, I was just thinking. It's just…" She looked at the other woman and turned away "Did I say something wrong?" Pepper mumbled as she set down the soapy plate from her hand. 

"No I asked you first, it only seems fair. You probably wouldn't understand it. The question itself seems so simple but…" She felt Pepper rub her right shoulder in comfort and took this as a way of going on with her sentence.

"Back when I was training to become a full Black Widow, there was this thing called a Graduation. Not like your regular high school graduation, but they would take the into an operating room and they would sterilize you. So I can't have children of my own, not unless I would be willing to go through a lot of medical assistance and even then, who knows." She shrugged her shoulders as if this were some issue she had at work.

Pepper looked at her with a face of guilt, "Shoot. Nat, I'm so sorry for asking you. I know you said you asked me first but I should have known not to overstep my boundaries with you guys." Again, Natasha didn't know how to respond to that so she just shrugged it off. "I mean at this point you've earned it. You're one of the only female friends I have anyways, so we might as well go and bond over things like this."

Pepper nodded in somewhat agreement and they continued to wash the dishes with some side conversations as if nothing had happened. They walked back to the dining hall to check out the little heroines and were glad to find them eating and chatting like good kids, the women wondered how they seemed so domestic as children and yet struggled with basic human necessities as adults.

After a couple of hours of free time the girls decided to send the boys off to bed. They thought it would be easier if they just had tiny children's bunk beds in someone's room (Steve's looked more easy to place them in and all the important stuff was placed on high shelfs, all the rooms had the same living space) until the avengers turned back to normal if they ever did.

But when the girls did leave the boys would get up from under their beds and talked about whatever they thought of in their tiny child minds.

So here the group layed, in two and a half bunk beds.

________________________________

"See! I told you they were lookin' at each other all funny." Clint whispered to them as he placed his hearing aids back on and adjusted them. "They are not! My mom and dad have friends like those, my mommy explained it to me once. They love each other like boys and girls do!" Tony whisper-shouted back at Clint.

Steve, growing up in a time where things like these were less acceptable, spoke up. "Wait. What are we talking about?" "Well, sometimes Steven, people who are the same… gender as you can like the same gender." Thor tried to explain to him, Bruce saw how this just made him worse and also tried talking to Steve. "What Thor means is that we think that Miss Natasha and her pretty friend Pepper might have a crush on each other. But they just don't want to admit it yet, so we want to help them!!" 

Steve nodded, still a little confused but wanting to help his guardians as he thought they should be happy regardless of how he himself found it a little weird. "But how are we going to help them? For all we know they could just be really good friends. What if we just make things worse?"

Tony and Clint stopped talking and considered this question. The group of boys were quiet for a moment before Thor spoke up again. "Well, I don't know if it is just me, but they look at each other like our parents do. Don't they?" The group looked at Thor hesitantly, not knowing how to respond to that.

"We don't really know what you mean Thor?" Tony told him, the mini god elaborated "Well, they have this type of *look* in their eyes. Like how our parents look at each other. Like they love each other." 

"Well, my daddy passed away a long time ago. So my ma doesn't really have anyone to look at her that way but me." Steve told Thor "Yes, but it counts doesn't it? The only difference is you just can not see yourself." Tony spoke up in protest "My dad looks at a lot of other girls that way though?" Again, Thor spoke with a clear answer to his response. "Perhaps your father just thinks those women are really powerful. My friend Lundri likes to watch the mighty Valkryrie fight, me and him plan to be some one day."

Clint spoke up as well, "My daddy doesn't look at her that way either, he sometimes hits me and my brother Barney. Actually, I think he's mad at me right now since he didn't bring me along to wherever my family went." 

Thor hesitated for a moment "My father does that sometimes too, to me and my brother. He just says it helps us build character. I believe he just wants us to be tough for when we're adults and we can be king." Clint repeated his first question. "I suppose, maybe he shows her love in another way? Does he do anything else to her?"

Clint lit up for a moment like he finally solved a puzzle and shouted a little "He hits her too!! Maybe he just wants my mommy to build chara-cter and be tougher too!" The archer struggled to pronounce some words, but found the answer he made up to be pretty satisfying. "How about you Robert? Is there anything your parents do differently?" Thor turned to ask Bruce about his parents before receiving a confused look and corrected himself "Pardon, I mean Bruce." 

"I'm going to be honest, I don't see anything very well, and my daddy doesn't really talk to me that much. But he says really mean things to me and my mommy and he hits us a lot. Once, mommy tried to take me and leave daddy; but he ended up catching us and then..." Bruce stopped talking, the whole scenario seemed blurry, he couldn't remember it if he tried. "Well, I don't know what happened. But I think daddy felt really bad about it because he took me out of the car in the morning and had my nurse tell me that mommy was in the hospital. He payed her a lot more after that." 

The group nodded. Then Tony spoke up "Wait you can't see well? Is that why you bump into the walls so much?" The curly haired boy giggled before softly telling him "Yeah, but I'm kind of clumsy, so maybe that's why too."

Thor asked him another question as he started to climb down from his top bunk and sat down in front of Bruce. "So you can't see us?" Bruce sat up, noticing the silhouette in front of him "Sort of, everything just looks blurry to me. Including your face." He put his hands on the god's face and began touching his facial features. "I can tell you have long hair, but I don't know what it really looks like." 

The god seemed satisfied with this answer and crawled back up. Steve spoke up again "Does hitting really help you build character?" Thor shrugged "Do not take my words for it. That's just what my father says. When he started to do it my brother and I disliked it, but now we just tolerate it until the lesson is over."

Clint sat up and talked to Thor from his own top bunk "Your dad sounds like mine. Maybe when our parents come back me and Barney can visit you and Loki in Ass-guard like a double playdate!" "Yeah! And we can show you our customs and languages too, my mother would be so delighted to have you!"

The five boys slowly grew tired. As the others began to fall asleep with the intent of planning on how to help Natasha and Pepper tomorrow Clint stayed up. The archer removed his hearing aids and placed them down on the side of his bed. The little boy had a couple of thoughts in his mind.

"If we build character from getting hit, then why does it feel so disgusting? Why does my mama always cry after getting taught from my dad anyways? And if it really does help then why does my brother start being mean to me?" 

"I don't think I like building character very much." Was his last thought before turning and facing the wall to sleep.


	3. I Simply Forgot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap this took forever. 
> 
> Pretty much centered around the tiny Avengers and then Clint in the end but I'm not very proud of it.

That next morning Natasha felt a little suspicious of her tiny teammates, and yet she couldn't figure out why. She was supposed to be a spy and yet she couldn't even figure out why the five little boys in the dining hall were chatting so quietly.

She spoke to them as she placed the final plate of pancakes on the table and sat with them. Pepper was asleep and Natasha didn't feel like waking her up all the time for help. As she heard the boys outside of her room asking for breakfast she sighed and attempted to make pancakes for them. They ended up slightly burned but she told them to just decorate the pancakes with fruit just so they could eat it better without attempting to throw it all back up.

"Alright guys, is there any reason you're all so giggly today? I know I'm not the best cook but even burned pancakes don't make people this happy early in the morning." She asked them in a nice tone, it was easier to speak to them that way as they all looked scared when she decided to be stern with them. She just figured that because they were children they were just more sensitive than usual, and that's saying something as none of them were willing to let out their true emotions before. 

The little group of boys stopped their chatter and looked at her for a second before they all held their heads down, like if they ever looked up they would spill everything they were just talking about.

"Guys? You know you can tell me anything right? If it's something bad I need to know so I can help you." She saw as Clint began fidgeting with his fingers and Thor tried to start eating his food without looking up at anyone else. Bruce could be seen gripping his baggy yellow sweater very hard, up to a point where if he let go it would leave wrinkles, Tony's face grew a little red as he tried to look up and ended up locking eyes with Natasha.

Steve looked like he was ready to crack, he began to open his mouth, Natasha spoke to him. "Steve, is there anything you or the others would like to tell me?" She heard Tony mumble a 'Don't!' to Steve before he mumbled something out in one big sentence. "What was that?" 

"Tony…hasacrushonpepper!!" He blurted out loudly and randomly, she could hear the other children gasp and Clint let out a little chuckle. Tony's face got a little more red every time he told Natasha as well as his new friends repeatedly "No I don't!!" Natasha sighed and smiled.

'Of course.' She thought as she began cutting into her pancakes, Tony and Pepper had a lot of weird tension between them over the years. They tried multiple times to create something before deciding to be better off as just friends. Tony would always admit to Pepper having to lay it down to him during their final breakup.

During their girl-time bondings Pepper told Natasha how different Tony treated her compared to the women he would sleep with, whether it was him just being a good friend or trying to persue something with her. Even after the fact that what they had was over he would always look at her with this greatful look in his eyes. He told Natasha once just how grateful he felt knowing that Pepper decided to stay friends with him after all this time, as not a lot of people did that to Tony Stark apparently. It made her heart ache a little.

When Tony looked like he was about to start crying Natasha spoke up again, "Alright guys calm down, it's not that serious. I think that it's very…" She tried finding the right words for the situation, in all honesty she just wanted to laugh until she cried because the actual Tony Stark was currently in front of her about to throw a meltdown because he thought a girl that was currently way to old for him was cute. But she didn't want to wake Pepper up and cause the situation to get even worse so she tried her best to comfort Tony through it all.

"Um, you know what? How about we all agree to not tell Pepper about this if it makes you so uncomfortable to talk about Tony?" He nodded and Natasha could have sworn she heard him mumble "But I don't." She picked up her fork again and put the pancake piece into her mouth.

Spoiler alert: It tasted like shit. She was able to swallow the first bite, albeit forcefully, before shuddering. "That was not fun. I'm gonna go get the maple syrup, you guys are allowed to put as much on your pancakes as you like as long as you eat the whole thing. I don't want you wasting food, but that was just very unpleasant." She told the little group of boys as she walked down the hallway.

Once they saw that she was gone Tony turned to his right and looked at Steve. "Why would you say that? Now they're going to think I have cooties or something." Tony was very angry, sure he told the group of boys that he though Pepper was really pretty about five…hundred times, but that's what you're supposed to do when you think girls look nice. His aunt Peggy said so.

"Because! One, she was asking us what we were talking about. Two, if we told Natasha about our plans of getting her and Pepper together then she would get angry at us AND all of our planning during naptime would be for nothing. And Three, I thought you did like Pepper?" Steve explained as he tried to cut through his stack of small pancakes. 

"You do compliment Lady Pepper a lot whenever we discuss her." Thor spoke as he completely abandoned his fork, knife and fruit toppings and just decided to grab a pancake and rip a piece out with his mouth.

Tony started making noises similar to an angry bird before Clint spoke up. "Just let us throw you under the bus this one time Tony. She believes you, but we sort of don't. If you say you don't like Pepper that way then you don't like Pepper."

Tony rolled his eyes to the side and nodded before eating some of the strawberries off his pancake. He looked to his left and saw Bruce glaring at his utensils in a very serious manner. "Bruce? What's wrong?" The little boy turned and looked at Tony before taking one of the bigger forks and shoving it in his face. "Be honest, is this a fork or a spoon because I really can't tell."

Tony readjusted the utensil before replying to Bruce. "Yeah but that's a big person knife. You need something smaller like one of these!" He got up from his seat to help Bruce pick out a better fork. "Maybe you should tell Natasha and Pepper that you can't see very well. It would help them not using so many band-aids on you!" Steve told the other boys as Tony gave him the proper fork to use. 

Bruce just shook his head "I don't want to be more rude, it's not really bothering me. My mom sometimes puts band-aids on me too, but she laughs most of the time and calls me silly. I don't really hear her laugh that much so I don't tell anybody." Steve nodded, relating in his little child mind through his own mother. Often times she came home very tired, but Steve and Bucky would be playing together in the living room with Bucky's mother watching them. Most times Steve just wanted to hug her and cuddle with her until they took a nap.

'I wonder where Bucky is right now anyways?' Steve wondered before Natasha came back with a full maple syrup bottle in hand. She poured a good amount onto her pancakes before offering the bottle to her teammates. Clint grabbed the bottle and poured for a good ten seconds before Natasha warned him not to use so much, the little Robin Hood simply turned his hearing aids low and continued pouring a heavy amount onto his pancakes before sliding the bottle to a curious Thor next to him.

______________________________________

Needless to say the kids had a sugar rush as well as a sugar crash. By the time Natasha and Pepper were able to control them they all piled up onto the couch and floor for an afternoon nap. Natasha decided to join them after 20 minutes of cleaning up the mess they made around the compound floor.

Pepper took a picture with her phone and smiled. She got a blanket from her guest room and placed it on Natasha, who had curled up on the floor all cat-like. She sat in a corner of the couch and monitored the group of superheroes while working on some of the work that Stark Industries had sent her to work on while Tony 'recovered'. She noticed how she had a little less than usual and finished the daily amount of work surprisingly quick.

'Oh gosh,' Pepper thought as she set down her work computer on the kitchen counter and sat down again on the couch. It felt weird to not be working so much before the afternoon, but she had already checked and re-checked her workload and agenda for that week, there was nothing she should start on until tomorrow for a good work schedule.

She patted her hands on her lap for a couple of seconds, bored on what to do without disturbing her companions. She looked at Natasha who by then had already fallen fast asleep on the floor. She hesitated before getting up and pulling out yet another blanket from a closet in her guest room and lied down next to Natasha on the floor.

She held her breath as the russian spy's breath hitched for a couple of moments before returning back to a normal breathing pattern. Pepper silently sighed as she relaxed her body against the soft carpet around the couches, where she saw that Steve had his small head on Tony's shoulders while the super genius had his head laying on top of Steve's tilted one on one end of the couch. She felt her eyes begin to close when she felt Natasha's figure begin to move.

Pepper felt as Natasha turned her own body sideways and began cuddling up against the business woman. Natasha was practically spooning her at this point. And oddly enough, Pepper didn't seem to mind it. 

The autumn cold had began to drop degrees these last couple of days. The little superheros could see people in New York huddled up in more clothes, and it had started to make some more changes in the already cold building. 

So no, Pepper wasn't going to stop Natasha for cuddling her. The spy was probably cold from the one thin blanket Pepper gave her. That was all. And yet a little quiet voice in her head told her otherwise, maybe hoping for something more. 

_______________________________

By the time they all had woken up their chaos felt a little less positive, for starters Thor was the first one to wake up and bored out of his mind decided it would be funny to pour water over his friends heads. He quickly set up each cup before pouring it over each head and quickly running off to the next person. For no apparent reason. Whatsoever.

The result was scary to say the least. Clint, who placed his hearing aids in the kitchen and forgot where he put them had started to freak out when some strange liquid was poured onto his head and his sense of hearing had been taken from him once again with no explanation.

Bruce had also freaked out but not before trying to tackle Thor after the blond child had poured water onto Steve and Tony. The result was worth it to Bruce however, as he felt Thor's jaw make a strange noise as he punched him to the ground. They began actually fighting for a good 5 minutes before Natasha and Pepper noticed, which resulted in another 10 minutes trying to pull them away from each other and trying to find Tony and Steve.

When Thor had poured water onto Steve and Tony, not only was it cold but most of the water in Tony's cup had gotten into the arc reactor and caused Tony's system to freak out. Steve had saw what was happening but before he could ask Thor he saw that Bruce had punched him to the floor and the two were now in a fight. He looked to see Clint on the floor shaking quite a bit and looking around for something.

Tony was starting to struggle with his breathing and Steve decided that he should be the most important person right now. He called out to the computer man in the roof. "Um, excuse me MR.JARVIS? There's something wrong with Tony." 

The A.I. responded immediately "Body scans tell me that something has happened to Sir, his Arc reactor is beginning to fail and his heartbeat is dropping slowly. Shall I grant you elevator access to Sir's lab?" Steve replied with a quick 'Yes please.' He grabbed one of Tony's hands and began leading him to the elevator but felt the taller boy trip halfway through. 

Steve looked behind him and saw that Tony was beginning to struggle to even get up, he heard the elevator ding and with no hesitation decided to scoop Tony up himself and carry the boy over his shoulders. The super serum helped with the whole process, although Steve didn't know that. He felt Tony grip his neck for better support, and when the two felt secure in their position they scurried on to the elevator where JARVIS lead them to Tony's lab for a new arc reactor.

The elevator ding was also what woke Natasha and Pepper up, the super spy noticed how close she was to Pepper before realizing she was literally cradling the other woman in her arms and pulled away as quickly as possible. 

The spy raised her head quickly and then hit the table next to them. She mumbled a number of curse words in Russian before she saw Pepper begin to move on the floor. The strawberry blonde got up and stared at the couch for a few seconds before turning back to Natasha frantically and asking the woman "Where are Tony and Steve?" 

The spy's eyes widened as she looked at the couch and found her teammates were nowhere to be found, she turned around and saw no one but Clint on the floor in obvious distress looking for something, he was surrounded by a wet substance on the floor and on his back shirt. The two women got up and looked around. Pepper gasped as she looked over the couch and saw Thor and Bruce in a fight looking very serious to be just pretend. 

"Oh shi-" Natasha was about to say before Pepper spoke up, already devising a plan on how to deal with this situation. "You go take care of Clint and I'll try to pull away the two boys. Whoever gets done first asks the boys where Steve and Tony are. Once we find them, hopefully they're just somewhere around the building, we huddle up here and ask the boys what started this whole thing. Okay? Great!" 

Before Natasha could reply or at least switch children roles Pepper was already speed walking around the couch and started to try and pull the two boys away from each other, yelling at them to stop in the process.

She looked over at Clint and saw that he was practically sobbing at this point. Her heart ached as she saw her best friend in such a horrible situation like that. She walked over and knelt down next to Clint, she tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention and looked around again. Oh. His hearing aids were gone as he took them off when Pepper started to yell at him for running around the house with an actual bow and some arrows he found somewhere on the floor.

She rubbed his back for a few minutes in an attempt to calm the little boy down. After a couple minutes Clint finally caught his breath and stopped breathing in hiccups. She patted his back and had them both stand up. As she took him to the kitchen she saw Pepper was still struggling to pull Bruce and Thor away from each other, so the super spy quickened her pace and retrieved Clint's hearing aids from the counter. Once the tiny archer put them on Natasha belt down to his level and spoke to him "We're going to talk about what happened over there later, okay?" 

Clint nodded but didn't meet here eyes. She rubbed his shoulder for a moment before they heard Pepper yell out 'Ow!' The pair looked to see Pepper had Thor in one of her hands and held Bruce in the other. The small boy used this to his advantage and decided to bite Pepper on the arm in an attempt to be put down and finish his fight with Thor.

Natasha's eyes widened, and she heard Clint audibly gasp as Pepper dropped Bruce and switched child positions. She ran up to Pepper and yanked Bruce away from her hand. Papper sighed as she readjusted Thor in her arms, the tiny god now glossy eyed with a bruise beginning to appear on his little jaw. 

Bruce didn't look any better, as Natasha began carrying him down the hall he kept squirming against her. His arms had all sorts of scratch marks, whether from himself or Thor she couldn't tell. Throughout the whole time Bruce was changed and turned into this he had been nothing but a shy sweetheart, but Natasha noticed how the veins on his arms and neck were beginning to pop out a little bit more. Turning green even. Perhaps the other guy was probably asleep but that didn't mean Bruce's anger issues mixed in with the gamma exposure went away. 

She saw the little janitors closet she was looking for and stepped inside. Natasha slammed the door shut and put Bruce down. "Listen, I don't know why you're acting like this, but it needs to stop. You are going to be put on time out in here while the rest of us go out and find Tony and Steve. You and Thor are going to talk and say sorry to each other." She was holding onto his wrists as everytime she would let go he began hitting her.

"You're going to be by yourself and calm down here. Once your little temper tantrum is over you're going to say sorry to Pepper for also hitting and biting her. That is not a nice thing to do Bruce." She let go of his wrists slowly and he just crossed his arms in silence, not saying a single word. 

She pat him on the shoulder and grabbed something off one of the higher shelves before walking out and slowly closing the door behind her, locking eyes with Bruce's, whose eyes were now dark green instead of that warm chocolate color.

She opened her hand to reveal the key to the closet. She hesitated to lock the door. The doctor and her weren't exactly close, and the Hulk was still a very big fear of hers. But this was a child, something that was innocent and pure. She remembered a couple girls would be punished in the Red Room for talking back, and they would be put into closets and not come out for hours on end. She had been in there once. They would turn around and look at a corner of the room for a couple of hours, then someone would come in and…

Once was enough. She never talked back after that.

That fight she saw in the main room wasn't very innocent though, she saw the way that he was continuously hitting Thor as if he deserved it. She noticed how Thor had quite a couple more marks on him than Bruce did. If he did that to fragile Steve or sensitive Clint…what if he got out and somehow managed to harm Tony's arc reactor? 

She locked the door and put the key in her pocket. Pepper would thank her later for this, she was sure of it. That bite mark Bruce gave her looked like it would leave a big bruise, Natasha swore she saw a little blood as she picked up Bruce and took him into the time out area.

As she returned down the hallway she saw Pepper tending to Thor's wounds, ignoring the big bite mark on her own arm that was gushing some blood out while Clint was telling her something and drinking a juice box. 

"And then they just walked out into the elevator! I didn't know he could do that but it looked like fun so I'm making Steve carry me once we find him. Oh hi Natasha! You want some juice?" She shook her head and looked at Thor, the tiny god just looked like he wanted to go back to bed. 

Pepper looked in the freezer for something and spoke to Natasha while handing Thor a cold package of peas and told Natasha "Clint told me that Steve and Tony left to floor 6, that's Tony's lab. Can you go get them for me-" The elevator door rang and Steve and Tony came through the machine like it was normal, everyday, stuff. Natasha turned around and put her hands on her hips and tried to look angry at them. 

"Where were you? Why did you leave the building without telling us?" Before Steve could respond to her JARVIS spoke up, defending the two children and taking the blame. "Forgive me Miss Romanov, I believe it was my idea for the two of them to go down into the labs. Tony's arc reactor stopped responding to the charging Iron Man suits and a body scan showed that his current reactor was damaged. I do apologize if I frightened you or Miss Potts." 

Natasha nodded and sighed, it was pointless for her to argue with an artificial intelligence system while Pepper and her teammates watched. She walked over to Steve and Tony to check on them "But you are okay now right?" Tony nodded and showed of the battery in his chest and talked about how bright and cool it was to Clint. 

As Steve also began walking towards his friends Natasha stopped him and bended down to his height "Thank you Steve for helping Tony today." The blonde's cheeks grew pink as Natasha complimented him. He nodded bashfully before walking towards Pepper and Thor, worried and thinking he could help the two feel better.

Tony looked around confused before asking Pepper and Natasha "Where's Bruce?" Steve looked around as well, everyone else avoided eye contact in awkwardness. "He's uh, he's in time out right now actually." Natasha told the boys, Steve spoke up again "For fighting with Thor?" 

Pepper replied to them this time "And not following directions, he was being really mean when we told him to stop hitting and he didn't listen." She knew enough of Banner and the Hulk to know that this fight was probably something out of Bruce's control. Natasha gave a hand sign that pointed to her arm. Pepper got the message and sent the children around the floor to tidy up "Whoever comes back here first from cleaning up their messes properly gets five dollars." 

The boys scurred off, with all of them dragging a confused Thor away, explaining the values five dollars could bring.   
("Candy, more candy, and some toys if they're cheap enough!" Clint explained.

Natasha walked up to Pepper and pulled out a clean wash cloth from the sink, she held a firm pressure against it for a couple of silent minutes before it stopped bleeding.

"Clean the wound with some soap and water, let it rinse for several minutes and then repeat. Bruce's genetics are all sorts of weird from the gamma exposure." Pepper's eyes widened as she did what Natasha told her to do. "Don't worry. We'll probably take you to a SHEILD doctor if this really gets bad." 

"So, where did you place Bruce for his time-out anyways?" Pepper asked her as she let the wound run under the water. "Oh I put him in the janitor's closet and locked the door." She smiled, proud of herself and even pulling out the key from her jean shorts.

Pepper stopped what she was doing and looked at Natasha, the running water still going on, "What! Natasha, what made you think that's a good idea?" 

The spy was confused again "Because he was physically hitting us and refused to stop because of his anger issues? She responded "Well, yes I guess that's understandable. But that still doesn't mean that it's okay for you to do that!" At that point Pepper had turned off the water and took the key.

"What would happen if, and God forbid, if something happened up here and we all had to evacuate! Poor Bruce would be at a bigger risk of getting hurt than we would because he would still be trapped up here! Even then it's still dangerous for him to be in there by himself, how long were you planning on keeping him there?" 

Natasha felt herself get smaller as she was being scolded by Pepper "About… an hour or two?" Pepper closed her eyes and used her good arm to hold onto Natasha's shoulders "Maybe tomorrow, when I'm finished with all my work we can talk about caring for children. I thought he didn't remember what happens when the other guy comes out?"

Oh shit. Natasha completely forgot about that. The spy froze and her eyes widened as she imagined Bruce waking up from his Hulk coma to find out he had been shoved away into a closet with no explanation and would probably start crying over it. 

Pepper held out the key in her good hand and turned on the water again "I'll clean up the rest of this bite mark. If Bruce really won't remember this then he's going to be upset with himself over fighting Thor and biting me. I'm gonna go tell the other kids about not mentioning it to him." 

Natasha looked up at Pepper and slowly took the key. She muttered a quick 'Thank you' before walking away to take Bruce out of the closet. 

Maybe she shouldn't have given up on on Bruce so quickly. Regardless of whether or not Steve and Tony were missing that probably didn't make it okay for her not to prioritize him in the moment. She waited for Pepper to call all the other kids down before opening the door to the janitors closet slowly.

"Bruce?" She called out, the light was turned off. The redhead certainly didn't do that. She turned them on and stepped inside. She saw the small child hiding in on himself in the corner as she moved forward. She saw there was a little hole in the wall, small enough to look like a fist print, but not big enough for an adult to fully damage the wall.

"Bruce? Are you feeling any better?" She asked the boy in a calming voice. She bent down on one knee to try and get a better look at him. They stayed there in the corner for a couple minutes until Bruce tilted his head up, eyes reverted back to their dark brown color, seeing that she was still there he made a whimper and hid his head again. He tried to scoot back into the wall.

He mumbled something under his arms that Natasha couldn't make out. "Hm?" She mutters. "Am I in trouble?" He asks her, sitting upright now looking at the floor. She makes a 'sort of' face at Bruce before going with a better answer "Yes, but it wasn't really your fault. So no. If that makes sense." 

He makes a very familiar confused face, she sees him make it at Tony all the time, and she holds in a laugh before clearing her throat as she gets up and gives him her hand. "Come on, we're going to have to make dinner soon and the whole floor is a mess." The little boy grabs her hand and gets up. 

They walk out into the hallway and saw that all the boys are lying down on the floor doing their 'learning time' as Pepper calls it, where pretty much they practice reading, writing or some math. Although Tony gets printed out high school papers as he finished the packet he got in bed. 

The boys stop their chatter as they see Natasha and Bruce come out of the hallway. They stared at him for a second before Tony tapped Thor. He realized something before getting up and walking over to Bruce and Natasha. 

He pulls Bruce away from Natasha and takes him to the corner. He looks at the other boys, who were at this point glaring daggers at the tiny god, before turning back to Bruce pink in the face, Natasha thinks this Thor probably hasn't had his ego bruised. She turns away to go check on Pepper in the kitchen, hearing him mumble embarrassingly a quick apology to Bruce. She turns around to check on them and sees how confused the scientist is as Thor explains his actions before replying with "Okay." As a sort of response.

They go over to the floor with the rest of the boys and Tony shows him all the math equations Pepper gave him today.

She walks over to Pepper again and sees her making boxed Mac and Cheese ("the Kraft kind of course, kids eat that shit up" Clint told her once on their visits to the barn.) "So, how'd it go with Bruce. You guys took a little while." The strawberry blond tells her as she stirs the pot. "He um, he got a little nervous in there when I came in. So it took a while for him to look up." 

Pepper sighed and shook her head "Well, you are the scariest Avenger." "You bet." Natasha replies as she gets a spoon out and tries the drained out water pasta.

"No wait Nat-" Pepper tells her, but it's too late. Pepper and Natasha's eyes go wide as the spy burns her upper mouth on dry, un-cheesed pasta. "I haven't added the packet yet…" 

The spy nodded quietly and grabbed a glass cup from one of the cabinets. She filled the glass with some fruit juice from the fridge. Chugged it up, and spoke to Pepper again. "Maybe in a little bit we can try giving the kids a bath?"

Pepper stopped cooking and looked at Natasha "But…they're our friends? What if they remember and they get like… really mad?"

Natasha closed her eyes and put the drink down. "They've been like this for 5 days now. Besides. We've all seen Bruce nude from his hulk-outs. Clint starts to strip if he drinks too much. Thor has no shame. Steve is modest but he'd probably be grateful for it right now. And Tony probably found a way to make the arc reactor a little bit more waterproof?" 

Pepper made a face "Sort of. It's like a Russian Roulette, no offense. The one you added in was a backup that wasn't really finished, the one Steve picked out was a newer and finished built one. So probably?" 

_____________________________________

The time comes where the boys have to shower. And for a while it's complicated as to how they're just going to do it. Eventually they just scraped every other idea and just decide to get a kid each, have JARVIS babysit the other three, and repeat the process until each child is clean. 

When it's Clint's turn, Natasha takes him and uses this as an opportunity to talk to him after he was done being cleaned. 

"So Clint, what happened out there?" She asked him as he placed his hearing aids back on. "What do you mean?" Whether he was playing dumb or just genuinely forgot, Natasha couldn't tell so she clarified herself. "Well, earlier today when Thor thought it would be funny to pour water you forgot you had your hearing aids out. When me and Pepper got up I saw that you were crying. A lot. I just want to make sure you were okay."

Clint hesitated, obviously knowing what she was talking about now. Natasha wonders if it's just a coincidence how every time she tries talking to the kids they all just stay quiet. 

"It's just…" Clint hesitates as he starts to put the towel down, he gives a look to Natasha. She closes her eyes and makes a hand gesture for him to continue. 

"I don't really have hearing aids at home because I didn't always need them. Even now it feels weird to hear myself speak or move my mouth so much." She hears him stumble as he puts on his pants before he goes " 'Kay you can open them now." 

Natasha sighs as she opens her eyes and asks her friend a question she knows he wouldn't answer as an adult. "How… how did you loose your hearing anyways?" She knows it's wrong, to take advantage of a situation like this to gain more knowledge of her friend. But she was a spy after all, and he really was her dearest friend. So if he really was that persistent about it then it must be something serious, maybe then she could help him and things would be better.

"Well… once when I was little my dad drank some gross beer, but he always drinks so that's not a surprise. Anyways he was drinking, and my brother Barney says he was drinking more than usual. So then he starts yelling at my mom and then he eventually starts to beat her up. I guess I got really angry and tried to get him off of her, so then he starts to attack me. And then eventually he just pours the rest of his gross bottle onto me, and then smashes it on my head."

Natasha sits there on the restroom seat with little expression on her face, but her insides are screaming to hug the poor boy. "At least that's what my brother says." Grown up Clint talks about his brother sometimes, some days out of anger and others about concern. Where his beloved older brother may be in the world after he ditched him at the carnival.

That little shit, Natasha thinks. In the Red Room, when the girls weren't killing each other in one-on-one fights (it was a sort of acceptance thing when it happened, mind control does that to you I guess.) They relied on each other for friendships and warmth, of course those who were more serious about their training (whether it was the ballet forgery program or the Red Room Program itself) hid themselves away as a chance of becoming more skilled and getting another day in life.

But Barney and Clint only had each other, who knows what those other circus people thought of them. And when he had the chance of a better opportunity for them both, he picked the selfish option and ran away by himself. Sure that without that misfortune maybe the world wouldn't have the Incredible Hawkeye, but if he managed to become a hero now then he would have become one no matter what.

"That doesn't really explain the crying." It probably did, but getting him to explain a little bit more could help their relationship with each other. 

"Well, Thor pulled that silly prank and I got scared. I didn't know what was happening around me, and I didn't have my hearing aids. So I sort of thought I was back at home, I just thought my dad was going to hit me again. And I really, really, like it here Natasha. I don't think I want to go back home anymore." 

"Well, why don't you want to go home anymore?" She knew it, Clint's dad was a drunk. But she wondered if the child was able to pick up on that as well, she saw him mess around with the shirt he had put on before he mumbled "Because my dad is a really mean guy and I don't think I like building character." 

That last part threw her off. "What? What do you mean building character?" Had Clint gotten it into his head that this type of abuse was good for him? That all families had these types of problems? 

"Well. Me and the other boys were talking about it a couple of nights ago. I told Thor about it and he said it was supposed to help you grow stronger, because that's what his dad does." 

Natasha didn't know what to say. "None of this is normal Clint! What your dad does to you is not okay." Before she knew it the words spilled out of her mouth, and she made a mental note to check on Thor later on in the week.

She hesitated before opening her arms to Clint, "Come here." she told him. He huddled into her welcoming arms and embraced the hug, "Don't worry. I'll make sure you won't go back there Clint. I promise you" 

She felt the boy whimper into her shoulder and felt the tear droplets drip down. She rubbed gentle circles into his back, which seemed to calm his breathing, but made the tears worse and she wonders if it would leave a stain.

'Crying is for children.' She remembers telling Loki in the sky, and she was right. For once she didn't like the fact that she was always right. Crying should always be for tears of joy, especially for something that's supposed to be so innocent.

So she sat there with him in the bathroom for a little while longer, clutching on to each other in an attempt to feel something. Turns out Clint might have also been touch starved as a child, she thinks as whenever she tries to release him he holds on tighter.

Eventually Pepper comes knocking on the door in concern "Natasha? Clint? Is everything okay in there?" Natasha peaks her head out from Clint's embrace and replied "Yep! We're almost done in here!" She taps Clint's shoulders for a moment before speaking to him "Okay. We genuinely have to get out of here, the other boys have to shower too. We can cuddle up again another time." 

The archer responds with a sad nod before removing himself from Natasha. He gets the wet towel and dirty clothes and they leave the bathroom. 

The night continues on, and soon the rest of the boys get out of the showers and start to get ready for bed. As Natasha gets the two cups of tea ready for her and Pepper she notices the other girl seemed a lot more paranoid about life.

"Hey, is something wrong? You look pretty…" Pepper turns to look at her as Natasha goes silent and makes a stressed out expression. Pepper sighs and turns to Natasha with paranoia spread all around her face. "Well, you know how you talked to Clint about his little problem earlier?"

Natasha added the Lavender boiled water into their two mugs "Yeah? What about it?" She sets the kettle down into the sink.

"Well it's about Thor. I was helping him in the shower and I noticed some, um..." Natasha looked at Pepper again and saw the woman was afraid to even say it. "Hey, I'm here to listen Pep. I'm sure I'll understand." 

She sighs and tells Natasha "Thor has a lot of scars on him body. Like, a lot, a lot." Natasha furrows her eyebrows down before fixing them, she doesn't want wrinkles or to upset Pepper by not taking her seriously. 

"So do you want me to talk to him?" She asks as she adds in some honey to their tea (she found that sugar didn't have that same sweetness effect). 

She sees Pepper nod as she stirs their tea before handing the mug to her. "Thank you Nat, I'm not kidding. This really concerns me." They walk down the hallway and chatter for a little more before Natasha eventually walks Pepper to her door. 

The strawberry blond looks down at her before smiling and telling the spy "Goodnight." She shut the door softly before Natasha could reply.

That odd feeling in her stomach came back. She wants to blame it on those God Awful pancakes and all the syrup she poured all over them but she knows better. 'Oh.' She thinks as she stops in front of her door.

"Oh shit." She says softly, this is a crush she realizes as she enters her room and gets her handcuffs for sleeping. 

Old habits die hard, she supposes as she cuffs her left hand on one end and hooks the other onto her headboard.

I guess psychological trauma does that to a person, huh?


	4. A Princess in Her Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I haven't uploaded another Chapter in over a month, and for that I'm really sorry. Eight of my family members have gotten tested with COVID, including my dad. 
> 
> Still, I have nothing else to do in the house. Hope this Chapter is better than the last!!
> 
> This was originally supposed to be A LOT longer, but I needed this chapter to come out so here's to part one.

Natasha woke up to a light weight on her bed, she gasped as her body fully acknowledged the situation. Her brain went into full spy mode and she turned the covers over the smaller figure.

Forgetting that she still had one hand hooked onto the bedpost Natasha struggled for a couple of moments before realizing this and instead, grabbing the gun she had tucked underneath her other pillow.

As she began to pull it out she heard the figure under her pillows giggle before they removed the blanket and locked eyes with the spy. There was a tiny, scrawny, little Steve Rogers on her bed.

Natasha relaxed as she saw the little boy who looked more than happy to see her. She relaxed and let her grip go on the gun she had in her bed. The spy praised herself (something she didn't do often) for waiting to see what was under the covers instead of going full-on assassin on Steve.

Steve continued to giggle before trying to control himself "Sorry Natasha, did I scare you?" Nat gave him a warm smile before replying "No, nothing really scares me." Steve nodded as his eyes slowly looked towards Natasha's other hand, the one that remained in cuffs. The little boy's eyes widened as he spoke to Natasha "Nat! What happened to your hand? Did somebody try to attack you? Where are they?"

Natasha saw that the star spangled boy was getting more and more upset, his eyes were beginning to get glossy. She began looking around for the little key she had for the chains before finding it on her dresser next to her empty tea mug.

She extended her arm as close as she could as she tried explaining to Steve about the handcuffs. (It wasn't doing much, all they were really doing was speaking over each other.) She successfully got the key after surely pulling a muscle in her arm and showing it to Steve.

"Steve, I need you to relax and look at me." The little boy managed to calm himself down and look at her as well as the key that she held in her hand. "The keys to my handcuffs are right here. I am not in danger, and I certainly was not in danger last night. This-" 

She lightly shoved him the keys in his tiny hands, hoping it might comfort him. "-is how I sleep, every night. Don't ask me why either. It's just how I fell asleep ever since I was a child." Natasha told Steve in a serious tone, worried that if he managed to get any louder he could wake up the rest of the tower.

And then Pepper would have a fit over the handcuffs probably. She might respect Natasha for not wanting to open up about the reasoning behind it, but a horrible feeling erupted in Natasha at the thought of the other woman seeing her sleep like that.=

Although, she had slept pretty well on the floor the day before, Natasha thought. She wondered if maybe the cuffs weren't as effective as they used to be in her sleeping patterns.

She shook her head and looked back at Steve. The little boy had calmed down from his worrying and relaxed. He looked expectantly at Natasha and gave her back the keys. The pair remained in a peaceful silence as she quietly leaned back enough so Steve could see how she had unlocked the cuffs.

After that Natasha looked at the door "So, how did you get in here anyways?" Steve looked confused "The door was open?" He told her.

Natasha thought for a moment before remembering the night before. What with how crazy the day was and then confronting Clint after his episode on the floor and chatting with Pepper, she must have just forgotten to close the door.

"Oh right." She said quietly as she realized her feelings for and about Pepper weren't exactly platonic anymore. She felt her cheeks get pink and warm at that remembrance. Looking at Steve again, she rolled out of bed and stared at the soldier.

"Let me go to the restroom and then I'll make you some breakfast? Okay?" She turned for the bathroom and heard Steve go "Oh no! Not again!" Natasha turned to stare at the little boy.

Steve got bashful again and looked at the blanket sheets again. "Um, I mean, no thank you. I think I'll go get breakfast myself. I didn't really like your pancakes." He said awkwardly before excusing himself out of the room and closing the door.

She giggled at Steve's innocent honesty. He had a point anyways, Pepper woke up a little afterwards to eat and assumed the batter was someone's vomit. Nat couldn't blame any of them for not wanting her food.

She grabbed some clothes from a drawer and went into the bathroom to shower and change. As Natasha began to change out of her clothes she saw herself reflected in the mirror, shirt off and noticeable for anyone to see the scars she had layered and stitched up from her previous years of assassination work and the aftermath some of them had.

Natasha sighed, not really feeling like having a pity party in the shower

__________________________

Natasha left her room, short hair matted up into a bun, and looked out into the hallways for Steve. Usually she'd be paranoid if she left a child in the tower by themselves but they all had JARVIS to help out.

And help out he did, as the russian girl found Steve chatting away to the A.I. It was actually very sweet as Steve was just sort of sitting there on one of the high stools in the kitchen asking JARVIS all kinds of questions while the computer (happily?) answered.

She heard little footsteps behind her, Natasha turned around to find Clint and Tony walking around slowly behind her. They froze when she turned around and noticed them. "Told you it wouldn't work." Clint whispered to Tony, the woman walked towards the two boys and bent her knees down to reach their height level.

She smiled at them "Boys, what are you doing?" She whispered to them, Clint and Tony looked at each other before Clint turned down his hearing aids and gestured to Tony for him to explain. "We were uh, well actually..." When Tony began to get quiet Natasha raised her eyebrows, that seemed to do the trick for him as Tony stood up straighter and replied.

"Well, we saw that Steve was already awake, and Thor and Bruce are still asleep. So Clint and I thought it would be a good idea to go out and scare Steve.”

"What! Why, I didn't do anything!" He shouted (or rather squeaked) on the chair.

“You woke up without waiting for us again!" Tony squabbled back, the pair began to have a little arguing competition about breaking breakfast rules and at this point Natasha just wanted to go back to bed and hope to god her friends turned back to normal.

She closed her eyes and sighed, she didn't even know what time it was. Steve just woke her up and apparently that was it. Screw her growing concern for the people around her.

After a while of just sitting in the middle of the corridor Natasha sighed and clapped her hands three times, the boys stopped what they were doing and also clapped their hands three times after her.

She sighed again in relief, thankful for her undercover work she had to do as a nanny one time.

"Okay, really guys? It is way too early for you two to be arguing already." She put her hands on her hips in annoyance.

Clint made a confused face and turned his hearing aids up "What? Who's Furthing?" Tony turned and explained to him "No she said it's too early for us to be arguing. Also! Natasha it's almost 10, that's pretty late for people to sleep." He sort of scolded her, she didn't really mind if he did this as children will be children. 

The idea of what time it was that morning suddenly hit her. "Oh shit-" The children gasped as she swore and they all began to cover their ears, Natasha swears to this day she heard JARVIS make a little laughing noise.

She realized what she said and cleared her throat. "Sorry! I meant 'Oh shoot' hahaha…" She stared nervously at the three boys before whispering "I won't make anything if you don't tell Pepper about this." 

The children all nodded, understanding that sometimes adults need to let out their emotions more harshly than children do. Besides, none of them really felt like eating Natasha's strange pancakes again. 

As Steve turned around in his chair and Clint, Tony and Natasha began to walk towards the kitchen she asked the three boys where Thor and Bruce were. Tony groaned.

They were up all night talking! Thor was telling us about how he sort of missed his home and said how it was very different from 'Midgard' or whatever we are." 

Clint piped in to explain the rest as Natasha pulled out the frozen waffles "And then Bruce got interested and started to ask Thor all these different questions about his home. And then they continued to talk about Thor's house until we fell asleep."

Steve added onto the last part bashfully "We don't know when they stopped talking but it probably took a while." He told her as she popped out the two warm waffles from the toaster and gave them to him on a little plate, he mumbled a quiet 'Thank you.' before he jumped off to get the utensils for them.

You don't want anything on them?" She asked Steve as she helped a stubborn Tony and an embarrassed Clint onto the too tall chairs. He turned around in wonder "I mean, if you don't mind.." He said as he tiptoed onto the drawer handle and opened it to retrieve a fork.

Natasha smiled at his consideration, but also began to grow concerned. A child his age shouldn't have to worry about things like this constantly, even if technically he didn't really have a different age. Obviously Steve was still ninety-something, he was just now conveniently smaller and had no further memories of adulthood.

Two more frozen waffles popped out, and Natasha put them on another plate before tossing that one to Clint. She walked past Steve and opened the fridge to pull out some strawberries and blueberries to put on top of the waffles.

Natasha noticed the bottle of whipped cream tucked away in the side of the fridge and considers pulling it out for the boys. She decides not to as she remembers how far the maple syrup incident had gotten yesterday, Pepper had to call in Happy because JARVIS told the girls that Tony had managed to leave the floor using the elevator and was rampaging throughout Stark tower. And a tiny Tony Stark being caught by ANYONE outside of his immediate friend group was a really, really bad idea.

And Clint would initiate it anyways, that guy always had a sugar tooth. She pulled out the fruit and put a couple of each into a small bowl before washing them in a sink. Tony's waffles popped out and she put those on another plate. She placed the tiny bowl of fruit in front of the three boys.

Clint of course already gobbled his waffles up and just decided to eat the blueberries out of the bowl. Steve was waiting patiently for what Natasha was talking about and started grabbing the fruit with his fork. Tony just grabbed some with his hands and ate his waffles.

Oddly enough, Natasha couldn't wait to tell Pepper that she managed to feed the kids something edible for once. If she was able to speak a full sentence to her at least.

\---------------------------------

Pepper woke up a couple of minutes after the boys finished their breakfast. Thor and Bruce however ended up coming out of their room at noon, Natasha ended up making a mental note later to scold them about their sleeping habits. Thor looked a little red in the face and had began to form a cough, Natasha just figured it was a mild cold and shrugged it off.

The day went as normal as these circumstances could get. Pepper went on to do her office work for Stark Industries, and Natasha watched the children until Pepper finished. The redhead didn't mind, today the boys were playing knights and dragons. They spent the first half of the day 'making' their costumes and props. (they mostly just used cardboard, paper, markers, and whatever clothes Natasha and Pepper already bought for them) And the second half was a little more chaotic, maybe even a little depressing.

Near the beginning of the second half of the day, Natasha and the boys went looking for some costumes, the spy looked around for some construction paper she and the boys used during some Arts and Crafts from a previous day. She traced and cut out a paper crown for the game before looking into her closet.

The girl opened the doors to her closet and began looking around. Her eyes caught onto a dress, she hesitated before pulling out a long sleeved baby blue dress. Pepper had gotten it for her at a Charity event for the Avengers. It was comfortable enough to wear in case any villain decided to show up but still elegant to wear at formal events.

She left her room and took the paper crown in her hands, walking across the hallway still in her running shoes. As she knocked and waited outside of Steve's room, Natasha could hear the 'click clack' of Pepper's heals.

The spy stood still as she realized how ridiculous she probably looked. As Pepper began walking down the hall, Natasha could hear her mumbling about how her coworkers were a pain in the-

She looked up from her papers and files and made eye contact with Natasha. She looked down for a moment before looking up again in confusion. The two stared at each other for a few seconds, unsure whether to say anything to the other.

At last, Natasha finally spoke, "It's... it not what it looks like. Really." Pepper chuckled before replying "Is it though?" Natasha let some of her body stop leaning against the door and she turned to face Pepper easier.

"Well, I mean sort of? They needed someone to be the princess and at that point I was already helping them so I just figured... since I had the time-" She cut herself off, unable to explain it.

And that was true except they were fully planning on asking her to be their princess. The boys were huddled up in a group in a corner of the room and whispering. Eventually they ended their discussion and went back to their parts of the 'castle' that they were supposed to be constructing. 

Bruce left the huddle last and had been chosen to ask Natasha if she could be their princess. Natasha was actually planning on going to the gym later that day but the poor boy looked so flushed in the face that Nat knew if she said no then he would go to Steve's room and hide in his bed.

And she didn't really want the other guy making an appearance again. The bite he gave Pepper had begun to bruise.

So Natasha said yes, throwing away any plans she had the rest of the day to be with her boys. 

She was knocked out of her thoughts by the door opening, because somewhere in her brain she thought it would be a good idea to still lean her foot against the door and she fell onto the floor of Steve's room. With Thor and Pepper in front of her in concern.

"Oh no! Please forgive me Lady Natasha, I didn't know you would be against the door like that. Are you hurt?" Thor asked her as he picked up her crown and held it out for her." Natasha mumbled a quick 'Thank You' before helping herself right up. After Pepper got over the shock and realization that Natasha was a spy and had been through way worse crap she cleared her throat and gave her another smile. 

"Right, if you need me, I'll be in my room. Call me if you need anyone else to come save you." Pepper continued walking down the hall and Thor closed the door quickly before Natasha could reply. Thor gave Natasha his hand and helped the woman up, and they waited a couple of moments for the other boys to come out.

The costumes were, sad. Clint and Bruce just decided to tape and glue more cardboard together and add that onto their clothing. Tony, Steve and Thor just had large squares of cardboard as shields and strangely cut out swords, although that might have been their bad tracing and writing. Natasha decided to just buy them the costumes online another time, she made enough money as an Avenger for it to not go to waste.

Steve walked out first, holding the door for his friends and caretaker until everyone left the room. As they walked down the hallway Natasha could hear Steve and Tony conversing for once instead of arguing. "She looks very pretty." She heard the super soldier say "I still think we should have had Pepper do it." Tony mumbled "Don't worry. We'll ask her next time, I'll even tell Thor to let you save her, I'm sure he'd understand." 

Natasha smiled.

\------------------------------------

To say she was bored would be an exaggeration, Nat was a grown woman playing dress up with her young teammates, thank god she brought her phone. 

She wasn't even using the cellular device that much, it was more like a mother watching her children and recording them all the while. She'd have to show these adventures to her teammates once they returned back to normal if they ever did at least. 

(And god she hoped they would)

Eventually Pepper did come out of her room to check in on her friends. She walked in on Natasha sitting on the floor surrounded by a cardboard castle while the boys fought gently against one another. Her shoes were placed onto the sides of the cardboard house.

She plopped down onto the couch with a book and smiled fondly at Natasha. "Having fun?" The spy replied with snicker before controlling herself "Yes actually. This position is getting on my nerves though." 

As they were chatting along, neither noticed how Thor was beginning to look pale. The boy was beginning to sweat a lot and although it was pretty cold in the apartments his cheeks were growing red, making them the only thing of color on his face.

Bruce did notice this though, and he stopped 'attacking' Thor to ask him what was wrong. The god stubbornly replied "Nothing friend, I don't want to tell Natasha." "Are you sure? You're sweating a lot." 

"Yes! I don't want to take a break, if you keep asking I'm gonna make 'Tasha put you back in the closet!" Thor whispered back frustratingly, "Geez! You sound like my nurse, don't come to me when you get sick Thor. I don't want to become infected." 

Bruce's nurse told him about fevers once after he tried going to play with his dad, she grabbed him away from the door and tried to lock him in his room. He doesn't like her very much, but Thor is different so he'll allow it.

About ten minutes later Thor threw up on the floor. A lot. The room stopped as everyone acknowledged what happened, Pepper got up from her spot on the couch and went to check on Thor. Natasha got up from her position on the floor and decided promptly that playtime was over for the day and sent the boys to their room.

When she got back to the room Pepper had a very tired look on her face as she rubbed the tiny gods back in an attempt to calm him down. Poor Thor was sobbing and rambling on about something, as Natasha got closer and knelt down to Pepper the two women spoke. 

"He ate some of the body wash." Pepper told unexpectedly. 

"What?" Natasha replied unexpectedly, Pepper turned to her "Yesterday he told me he could shower himself. So I waited behind the curtains until he came out, and apparently he managed to eat some of the body wash." 

That...sounded like Thor. The god was smart at times but had no clue of Midgardian culture as he had only been living here for a couple of months. 

The god eventually cried to a point where he was shooting electricity through his hands while apologizing profusely. Every time Natasha and Pepper tried to calm him down his emotions only seemed to worsen. 

Natasha and Pepper had to scoot back when the electricity began to shoot out more. It was scary really, Thor had managed to glow with such frustration that he managed to shoot up the whole floor of electricity.

As well as, according to a later phone call from Happy and calculation from JARVIS, the whole Stark Industries building, and any building within a 3 mile radius. 

Natasha heard the other boys scream from Steve's room. Pepper had gotten up to go check on them and look for flashlights as the sun was beginning to go down.

The spy was then left there with Thor, sobbing and crying all the while as children normally do. 

For a quick second Natasha thought she was glad for not being one.

And then the god is turning and holding out his arms for a hug, one that Natasha welcomes with hesitant arms. Thor doesn't seem to notice as he crawls over to her and tries to control his breathing. 

She held him like that until Pepper came back with a sigh and a flashlight. By that point Thor had calmed down and the chest of Natasha's pretty blue dress was covered with tear stains, she could care less about the dress at that point. 

Pepper spoke as she knelt down next to Thor and Natasha "JARVIS is down, the system won't be back up for a while." Nat nodded silently, they stayed like that for a couple of minutes before Pepper spoke to Thor. "Do you want anything?" Thor shook his head, the god didn't trust his voice enough to speak "You wanna go back to the room with your friends?" Thor nodded and Nat patted him on the back before he got up and started to walk down the hallway "Make sure to change!" Pepper shouts after him.

Pepper turned to face Natasha "We should probably clean this up." The spy nodded before getting up "I was going to talk to Thor about what you said yesterday after we were done playing, but...maybe we should wait a little bit." The two continued to walk down the hallway silently, stopping in front of the same closet that Natasha put Bruce in the previous night.

They looked inside for some cleaning supplies, only finding brooms, vacuums, dust pans and a couple rolls of toilet paper. There was of course a mop but they just took it out and left it hanging in the living room. Pepper groans as they find no cleaning supplies "We're probably going to have to look in the other closet." Natasha looked confused at Pepper before asking the taller girl "I thought we weren't supposed to go in there." Pepper shrugged "Sort of, Tony used to keep some old blueprints and scrap in there. But after the attack of New York and Loki destroying part of Stark Tower he just decided to put more cleaning supplies, we've been meaning to fix the door but you know how Tony is..."

The two stopped walking and and Pepper opened the door in the dining hall, Clint tried opening it one day and Natasha yelled too harshly at him. He cried in the corner and wouldn't leave until Natasha offered him a piece of candy. 

Pepper tried to open the doorknob and struggled for a couple seconds, she twisted the knob for a couple of seconds before the door finally opened. The two stepped inside and looked around, there were a couple of boxes that were full of cleaning supplies. While they started looking around for any cleaner for the main floor, neither noticed how the door was slowly closing until they heard the wood slam shut.

Natasha sighed as she got up to try and open the door. She moved the doorknob around a couple times, eventually leading to her shoving her shoulder into the door at a struggling attempt to open it.

"Shit." She mumbled as the door refused to open, Pepper turned from the box of cleaning liquids to look at Natasha concerned. "What's wrong?" The spy fumbled around for the light switch, screaming silently when the button didn't work. "The door won't open." Natasha mumbled as she began looking around for something to bust it open. "Well, can't you just kick it open?" Natasha thought for a moment before shaking her head.

"Nope, I'm not wearing anything safe to bust it down. Even if I manage to do it I could easily damage my foot, considering we have to chase around five boys all day I don't think I can risk that." The two sighed as they sat down against the door and thought of what to do.

"We could just make some noise until the kids come out, I think Rhodey is a couple floors down." Pepper thought "He said he was having a meeting regarding War Machine, we could send out one of the boys to get him?" Natasha thought again, deciding this would be the best idea for the moment, at least until JARVIS was back up.

She grabbed a bucket and swung it against the door "C'mon, we have to lead them over here." She swung the bucket again, wondering how Tony managed to keep the door so sturdy and broken at the same time. Pepper began hitting her hands against the door, yelling for the boys.

They stayed like that for some time, at least until a curious Tony Stark left his room to look for his friends.


	5. The Dumb Door's Fault

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The filler episode I didn't need but the one I hope you guys want
> 
> I swear next Chapter is Thor-based, but maybe it won't be as long to write :')
> 
> ALSO: Rhodey and Maria make a cameo but Rhodey does come back in the end of the series ;)
> 
> Enjoy!!

The boys were laying in bed, bored and messing around with the flashlight. Thor had changed and was currently having his hair braided and played with by Steve. Bruce looked up at Tony from his book and sighed “They’re taking a really long time,” Tony turned towards Bruce and the little boy continued “do you think they need help?” 

Clint looked up from his coloring book “Yeah right? Usually they would call us over to help with dinner.” Tony sighed and got up, “I’m gonna go outside and look for a snack.” The boy set his blueprints and pencils neatly on the floor before opening and closing the door quietly. It wasn’t that dark out for Tony to need the flashlight, he had his own cool light in his chest.

As Tony began walking down the hallway he called out for JARVIS and got no reply, ‘Oh well,” he thought ‘JARVIS is probably sleeping.’ He walked towards the kitchen and struggled to open the fridge for a couple moments. He succeeded and got out a tiny bag of blueberries from the fridge.

As he walked back, plastic bag in tow, a strange noise was heard down by the dining hall. The genius’s eyes widened at the loud noises and began looking around. There were a couple of brooms laid against the wall and the mess Thor made was still there. 

Tony hesitated before walking back to the kitchen and arming himself, because that’s what his mom said to do in case anybody broke into their house. Once he had grabbed a sharp fork and his bag of berries he walked towards the dining room very slowly. 

Tony noticed that the noises were coming from the weird door in the side of the room. He thought of just leaving it after the one time Clint faked crying in the corner after Natasha yelled at him. 

And then he heard Pepper and Natasha behind the door, his stomach did a little flip when he realized they were trapped behind the door, and not in the good way. He sprinted back to the room and knocked on the door excessively.

Steve opened it on his tiptoes, “Tony? What’s wrong?” The genius rushed in and threw his bag and fork onto the bed, Clint grabbed them and proceeded to eat the berries with the fork. “Natasha and Pepper are stuck inside a door!” 

The four boys looked at him confused. “No- I mean that they’re stuck behind a door! The one Natasha told us not to open.” Bruce giggled “Whoever built that shouldn’t work here anymore.” Tony remarked back “Right! I could probably build a better one anyways.” 

“Hey! Maybe we should build a better door for when they get out!” Steve exclaimed. The rest of the boys all murmured in agreement, Steve let Tony take charge of the planning for the door and the rest of the boys began gathering scraps throughout the floor. Tony quietly walked over to the shut door and began measuring it, he tried to be as quiet as he could because once he was being too loud in front of his father’s office and walked in on his dad and a very pretty lady who wasn’t his mother in a meeting. 

Tony knew it wasn’t about work, his father’s shirt was very wrinkled and he always made a fuss about having them look good to their butler, he figured Natasha and Pepper might also like some privacy.

\-------------------------------

Pepper stopped slamming on the door to rub her sore hands again for the seventh time, Natasha noticed and also put down her broom to rest for a moment. The two sighed and decided to rest again against the door once more. 

“You know, I don’t think the boys are going to be coming anytime soon.” Natasha mumbled against the door, Pepper moved on to rubbing her wrists before replying “Probably. We should do something to try and pass the time.” 

Natasha turned to Pepper, a smirk across her face “So...and I’ve always wanted to know this, but how did you get the nickname ‘Pepper’ Potts?” The blonde’s smile faltered as she took in the question “I- That’s sort of a long story? You don’t want to know anything else?” 

Natasha’s eyes widened in confusion. “What? I always thought it was because of your red hair and freckles? I’ve heard Tony say you used to carry around Pepper spray when you began working here?” Pepper mumbled back into her arms which were wrapped around her legs on the floor. “That’s part of the reason.”

Natasha looked at Pepper in concern, “You don’t have to tell me. I’m pretty sure whatever happens in this room we won’t discuss after we get out.” she leaned her head against the taller woman’s shoulders to prove a point. (She wanted to do that anyways, spies can get tired too.)

Pepper hesitated before speaking “You’re absolutely sure that you won’t tell anybody?” She tilted her head downwards “I’ll keep my word.” Natasha spoke softly. Pepper sighed and thought for a moment.

“I guess it all started in college. The pepper spray part is true but I guess the explanation for why I had it or even needed it gets a little blurry. You remember I told you I graduated from Harvard right?” Natasha nodded “Well, in my second year there I got... disowned”

Natasha’s eyes widened “What?” Pepper sighed again “Let me explain.”

\----------------------------------------------------

Nervousness flooded Virginia’s brain as she waited for her girlfriend. The word ‘girlfriend’ still gave her butterflies in the strawberry blondes stomach, she still couldn’t believe how long it took her to realize her attraction to both genders.

She tried telling herself it was just out of curiosity for months, ‘college girls experiment all the time!’, she repeated over and over again. And then she bumped into Jenifer after leaving one of her last classes. The poor girl was crying in the hallway over her cousin, turns out her uncle was a piece of shit.

She stepped down and spoke to the girl until she felt better, they then exchanged contacts, for study purposes of course. Jenifer wanted to become a lawyer and Virginia was majoring in Business. Their career choices didn’t really collide but the two enjoyed each other’s company enough.

And then one thing led to another, and soon those little meetups turned into dates and kisses and... Some things Virginia could only think of in her dreams. Of course Jenifer’s parents knew about Virginia. They adored her and how happy she was making their little girl.

But then her mother called to ask how things were doing, when she mentioned how she was ‘seeing someone’ so as to keep Jenifer’s gender non-specific her mother was thrilled. The old woman demanded to see her partner as soon as Pepper went home for Christmas break. 

She told Jenifer later on about her mother’s request, later on that Christmas break Virginia stood waiting outside of Jenifer’s apartment to drive the two of them towards Virginia’s childhood home. So here she was, in the pretty winter snow waiting for her girl. Hoping to God her parents wouldn’t find it weird.

The drive there seemed almost perfect, like something out of a movie. Singing along to whatever songs they felt like and just talking. Virginia mentally slapped herself on the forehead for waiting too long to realize her attraction to girls. 

And then it came time to meet her parents. 

Pepper still regrets that day.

Her parents opened the door, thrilled and very excited. When they laid their eyes on Jenifer they just assumed she was a friend. The four of them sat down for dinner and her parents got to know her ‘friend’. 

Eventually she came clear about the whole situation and to say her parents exaggerated would be a hopeful wish. 

Her mother began scolding her, calling it a phase and wondering if Virginia should just drop out of college to try and fix herself. Her father began lashing out at Jenifer for putting horrible ideas and thoughts into his little girl’s head. 

And then he began to attack her. That was probably the last straw for Virginia.

She pulled out her pepper spray and shot it in her dad’s face. He loosened his chokehold on Jenifer and together the two girls ran out of the house, with Virginia’s mother yelling out obscenities at them. 

Jenifer drove them home that day, Virginia had cried so much on the way back that she could barely see the road. 

She broke up with Jenifer two weeks after that, she couldn’t stand to see the woman that she adored so dearly after that in paranoia, worried that something even more dangerous would hurt her if they were together. 

She continued to carry a little bottle of hairspray with her at all times. Just so she could protect herself more carefully in her life.

The last time she heard of Jenifer Walters, she had achieved her goals of becoming a lawyer, but in the process had gotten into a horrible car crash. She never met her cousin but he seemed like a nice person enough to donate his blood to her. 

Pepper chuckled at that last part as an attempt to make herself laugh. It didn’t fool Natasha though. The spy turned properly to face the other woman in concern “Oh Pepper..if I had known it would be-” She cut herself off and sighed “I’m sorry I asked. I…” She hesitated before speaking again. There was no point in hiding it now.

“I understand where you’re coming from.” She couldn’t see the other woman in the dark but craved to hold and hug her, cradle her in her arms and tell her everything would be okay.

But that would be too weird, so she just rubbed one of her shoulders in comfort. “You know? I think you might be the third person I’ve told this to sober. Back when I began working for Tony and I hung out with him and Rhodey for the first time, I just drank and drank and ranted about my problems until I barely remembered what happened.” She mumbled

“Really?” Natasha asked, “Yeah. I mean after that incident they swore to never mention it to me but other than that, the thought of saying the actual story always bothered me. But you guys, no offence-” Pepper put her hands up in defence for what she was going to say next. “-You guys have been through some things. The most I know and witnessed have been Tony and his ‘superhero origin’ but something tells me that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” 

Natasha sighed in defeat at that statement “Yeah, you’re right. But that doesn’t mean that others can’t be allowed to have pain. Especially you. Seeing as how you have to deal with all of our shenanigans and mischief. I’m considering getting you a therapist for every time we all get into Twitter arguments.” She smiles at the other girl in the dark.

Before the two girls can say anything else they hear a knock on the door. The two widen their eyes at each other and face the door. “Hello? Boys!” Natasha shouted behind the door. They hear a heavy object moving before someone speaks “Are you two done?” It was Tony. 

Natasha and Pepper turned to each other in confusion “What do you mean?” Pepper shouted behind the door. “Can you come out now? We made you a new door.” Tony told them, Natasha tried with every ounce of her being not to yell at him through the door. Pepper noticed this and confirmed it with Tony.

"You mean that you knew we were stuck behind the closet and you did nothing to get us out?" Tony hesitated before speaking “Well…we were, but then Bruce and I agreed that the door was very bad so we all decided to build you a new one!” He shouted excitedly, proud of how quick he was able to build it with friends who tried out his interests. He didn’t have many of those. 

Pepper sighed and turned her head “He always did like to work harder. Not smarter.” Natasha realized that the boys knew the two of them were trapped and spoke up “Well, we’re actually stuck. So I need you to get the rest of the boys and come back so we can explain what we need you to do. 

Tony shouted out an ‘Okay!’ before scurrying off and finding the rest of the boys, a couple minutes later the five of them stood outside the door waiting for Natasha's instructions. 

"Okay, first off I need a couple pieces of paper and a pencil." Steve shouted an 'I got it!' Before scurrying off to go find the items.

Pepper mumbled to Natasha "Who are we going to send out?" Natasha thought for a moment, “I think we should send Bruce.” Pepper looked at Natasha “Really? I mean I’m not judging you but, isn’t Bruce a little shy to go out by himself?” 

“Not really. I mean, think about it. They’re all pretty recognizable, if we decided to go and send someone like Thor, Steve or Tony into Stark Industries then this could all go to shit. People would notice immediately who they were and would call security, SHIELD, or some evil scientist they work for because security here sucks.” Pepper nodded solemnly, she had told her other co-workers about that problem and no one had acted on it.

“So it only makes sense if we send one of the less recognizable people. Clint has sort of lived in the public eye when he was younger thanks to the circus, people are gonna recognize him from those circus posters he and fans uploaded to the internet. Which only leaves us with one person.” 

(She still remembers the meeting they had for it. "But Nat! This child has the face of a glow worm. Who wouldn't want that?" "I wouldn't Clint." "Oh of course you would, look how cute I was. Thank god none of my kids look like this though, they all got their mom's good genes." "I know Clint, you've told me this for years.") She shook that thought off.

Natasha hated to say it, but unless it was in the field of science nobody really knew of Bruce Banner. With the Hulk being the guy let out on missions all the time everybody just preferred him over Bruce. And Banner seemed fine with that, seemed being a keyword.

“He doesn’t like to talk about himself, and photos of him online haven’t gone that far into his youth. Besides, we’ll just ask him to use his real name.” Pepper thought for a moment “And if he really doesn’t want to do it?” she asked worriedly “Then we’ll send Thor and tell him to use a different name.” Natasha replied quickly.

Steve came back and slid a couple of pieces of paper under the door and a red pen. As Pepper began writing a quick message to Rhodey Natasha yelled through the door to see what the boys needed to do. “Okay, me and Pepper are writing a message to our friend. But we need one of you to bring it to him. We’ve already decided on it.” 

Natasha hesitated for a moment, suddenly regretting her decision “Bruce we need you to go put on your shoes. You can't leave the floor in your socks." The other boys gasped, and Clint made noises of protest. Natasha explained to the rest of the boys a little lie "We already told Rhodey we would send Bruce. We can't have the rest of you leaving the tower, it's not safe." Bruce scurried off to go fetch his shoes, paranoia spreading throughout his tiny body. 

“Are you sure he has to go Natasha?” Tony whined in front of the door, fidgeting with the new door and implanting a couple more screws. The spy’s stomach growled in hunger and Natasha thought for a moment a way to bribe the children. “Yeah. We need him to go out because Pepper and I thought of ordering pizza for you guys.” 

The children gasped, except Thor, who had to be explained about what pizza was again. Natasha silently chuckled as she thought of the adult Thor, who after he tried his first slice ate almost half a box full of pizza. 

Pepper chuckled at that while finishing up the letter “I don’t know if we’ll be able to call a pizza place with the whole tower probably being down.” she mumbled, just in case the kids heard and she had crushed their dreams. 

“Don’t worry. If Rhodey decides to stay and have dinner with us I’ll go out undercover and make him babysit with you.” She smiled at the other woman, Pepper finished up and bended the paper. “Should I sign the paper or just give it to Bruce like this.” She showed her the bent up paper and offered it to her.

“Maybe you should put the Avengers logo on it, they won’t take it as seriously if it were just from some random person at work. Oh! And make sure to write something about Bruce on the paper so they know to have it remain with him.” Pepper nodded in agreement and wrote 'KEEP WITH CHILD' in a big font next to the Avengers logo.

"That ought to do it." She said and waited until Bruce came back to the group. Once they heard him come over they slid the paper under the door.

"Use your real name if anybody asks who you are, okay?" Pepper told him from behind the door, Bruce made a face "Why?" Natasha spoke another lie "We called him using your real name. So he's gonna be confused if you find him and say you're Bruce." 

The little boy nodded, not really believing them but going against his better judgement. As he began to leave Pepper spoke up "Oh! He's on floor 36, so remember that when you reach the floors." 

He mumbled a quick " 'kay" before walking off, the rest of his friends following behind and supporting him. He made it to the door to the stairwell and turned around. "Do any of you want to switch?" 

The others protested "Brucie! You got a real superhero mission and you're passing it up! You could probably take down some adults and walk away fine, you got this!" Tony told him.

"Besides," Steve told him in a harsh whisper "Thor has no idea what pizza is. Natasha said she was gonna get us some for dinner!" He shouted excitedly. Steve's mom made pizza sometimes when they had the ingredients, so for him to just eat it and Natasha claimed it wouldn't make a sent in her wallet made him very happy.

Bruce looked conflicted and turned towards his friends, then the door. He sighed and opened the door, it made a little ‘click’ noise as he closed it. "I call the first slice." He shouted down the steps, the boys cheered in excitement and stood there. 

"Wait now what do we do." Clint asked the group. They all turned and looked around at each other. 

"We could play War." Thor suggested "My father does that to train the guards sometimes." The boys nodded in approval until Steve spoke up "Or we could help Natasha and Pepper and clean up your mess." 

The boys turned towards the living room, the world was getting dark now and there was a single mop and bucket hanging against the wall. The cardboard from their earlier game was left untouched by Pepper and Natasha.

"Oh. Yes, that sounds like a better idea." Thor replied sheepishly. Clint began to get more light from the lanterns in their rooms, Tony looked under the sink for some cleaning supplies, Steve started to put their cardboard away and Thor got a chair to fill up the bucket in the sink.

Back in the closet, Pepper realized their mistake in letting Bruce go to Rhodey by himself. "Natasha." The other woman jumped a little I'm shock "Yeah? What's wrong?" 

"The tower isn't working." Pepper mumbled 

"Yeah? So what?" Pepper rubbed her face "Meaning, if the tower is down, then Bruce has to go down the stairs. We are currently in one of the tallest buildings in NYC, and Rhodey is at least fifty to sixty feet below us." She mumbled into her hands frustratingly. Natasha finally got the hint and her eyes widened. 

"Shit. Holy shit!" She cursed loudly against her own stupidity "We sent out a very young child who happens to be our friend to go fifty floors down so we could get our friend who isn't a child to open a stupid door for us." 

Pepper groaned "When you say it like that it sounds worse." She shouted. 

"Maybe we can convince Tony to try and tinker around with the mainframe." Natasha sighed and grabbed the mop again. 

"This time, we'll take turns." She spoke to Pepper as she got up to break the door open again. The other woman moved towards another wall "At this point be my guest."

Tony got to it eventually, but by then it was a quick convenience.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Bruce regrets a lot of things in his young life. One of them being the first time his mother told him to hide when his father came home. He didn’t do it quick enough and his dad broke his wrist. He hit his mother a lot afterwards.

But this could have gone in the top five. By the fifth floor he had gotten tired. And Pepper's friend Rhodey, if he counted properly, was fifty three floors down. 

He stumbled a little by the tenth floor, now absolutely gripping the stair handles. There had to be another way to floor thirty six. 

He thought of asking JARVIS but Tony said the A.I was asleep. That's okay, all robots need some rest every now and then. There were also the elevators and other technological ways to go down but those seemed to be out as well. 

He really did have to stop and take a break thirty floors down. He panted quietly in the dark while employees were roaming around trying to turn everything back on, he hoped. Everyone was in such a rush that no one noticed the small boy sitting down against the wall. 

And Bruce did feel tired. It felt weird to fully relax around people who were so willing to hang out with him. Not like in school where children would make fun of him and pull his hair, it felt even worse when he couldn’t even see anything. Still, Natasha and Pepper are nice. The only other person who has ever treated him with warmth like that was his mother.

And he really missed his mother. He hoped his mom was safe being with his dad by herself. Maybe if Bruce brought Rhodey to Natasha and Pepper then he could go home. 

His stomach made a noise, yearning for food. Bruce groaned in agony and got up again, his little body stumbled and he leaned against the wall.

He sighed and started walking down the stairs again. His body pleaded to stop, to breathe, to rest, to do anything but go down these annoying stairs.

And yet Bruce bit his tongue, he sucked it up. Because he shouldn't be crying over some dumb steps. 

"I hate the stairs." He decided forty floors down. At first he was in awe about how big this whole tower was but now Bruce just wanted to go to bed. It was ridiculous really, who needs this many floors in one tower. 

Bruce sighed and trotted on, his feet were absolutely aching at this point. And his head was really starting to hurt from the mix of exhaustion and hunger. His lips were also really dry, he thought of stopping on one of the serious floors to look around for a water fountain but decided against it. Someone could see him and then Natasha would get mad.

Besides, he would have to look around for Rhodey on floor thirty six anyways. He was bound to find some water somewhere. As he began to think about how soft his bed would be he missed a step forty six floors down and fell down the rest of that flight of stairs.

He struggled to get up and managed to step on his shoe laces and tripped yet again down a flight of stairs. He crawled towards the nearest wall and sat up against it. He began to check himself for bruises like he did at home.

It took a lot of energy to not start crying right then and there for Bruce. But then he realized he managed to get down two floors worth of stairs and considers just rolling down the rest of the way. But then decided not to, because his neck, face and head hurt really bad and he can't really check them for bruises. He just hopes they don't leave any marks. Bruce wished he could say the same to his legs and elbows though, a big ugly bruise was forming around his left knee.

Eventually he reaches those last five floors. He checks two times for the number of the floor, and then a third time to pinch himself just in case this is all a hallucination from the stairs that he fell down from.

It wasn't, the mark his nails left his wrist showed enough. He got off the stairs and turned his head both ways. The left side of the wall was replaced with windows like the rest of the floors, the right side was filled with doorways to various lobbies while some were just straight up board meetings. He didn't know where to begin, should he go wander around and ask someone? What if he got taken away? 

He pressed his lips together, shocked at how chapped they felt. It was like they were nonexistent, if he had gone farther he would feel no difference from his lips to his skin. 

Water was the first priority, he finally decided. He turned left and quickly tried to avoid the adults in his path, who were so busy with their own lives to even notice the small Bruce Banner running among them. As he was rushing by everybody he looked out the glass windows.

The world was dark now, the usual lights in the neighboring buildings weren’t working either. It felt like the end of the world was arriving, and everybody was trying to stop it. The idea seemed so familiar in a way but he didn’t know how to describe it. 

‘Maybe the others know what I’m talking about.’ he thought as he slowed down in the hall. He could talk to Tony about this, Bruce and Tony understood each other more than anyone either did. 

While in his thoughts Bruce managed to find a water fountain, passing by it and then realizing it was in front of the wall a couple seconds after. He sighed happily and tiptoed onto the fountain.

“Oh right.” He said as he wiped some water from his face, he looked in his pants pocket to find the folded up letter Pepper gave to him. He sighed again in defeat and looked around the hall once more. Bruce continued walking back around the floor to try and find a lobby again. 

\------------------------------------------

Bruce honestly wanted to scream at this point. At Pepper and Natasha or his feet for being so sore he couldn't tell, he just wanted to throw a chair. 

It had been thirty minutes and he still couldn't find another lobby. The boy regretted not going back to the stairwell and entering that one.

Just as he prepared to attempt and jump out the window he looked forwards. 

The same freaking staircases were staring him right in the face. He let in a big breath of air before breathing out again. The boy opened the door nervously and stepped inside. 

The air still felt as stuffy in the room as it did in the hallway. The place seemed so familiar here as well. Maybe he dreamed it up once in a dream? Yes, that had to be it! 

As he wandered around wondering where to go a familiar agent walked by, mid conversation with an intern. Thankfully she had noticed the small child wandering around the compound. 

Her eyes widened as she acknowledged what she just saw. She quickly finished explaining the instructions to the intern and turned around. Sure enough, a small little boy was wandering around the lobby, examining the various meeting rooms that were now filled with flashlights and other light sources. 

She hoped that she knew what she was doing and cleared her throat, walking up to the boy. "Excuse me?" 

The little boy turned, panic struck across his small face, his curls shook in the process. "Oh no you're not in trouble!" She hurried over to him “How did you get in here?” The first ten floors were easy access, after that you had to get a key to enter the higher up rooms. 

The boy looked around his clothing and pulled out a folded up note with the Avengers logo quickly scribbled onto the paper, he handed it to the agent and she read it before staring back at the boy hesitantly. “And...what was your name?” She eyed his soft hair, noticing how familiar he looked but nothing came up. 

He hesitated before speaking quietly, rubbing his bruised elbow “Uh, Robert…”.

She looked him over, noticing how scraped and bruised the rest of his body was. He didn’t look suspicious. The child just seemed like he really was delivering a note from Pepper. 

Besides, this looks like a case of falling down the stairs. Child spies have been trained to snap necks since they were able to function properly, Robert still had that childhood innocence

She sighed and looked around, Rhodey was in a meeting with SHIELD as an unofficial member of the Avengers since most of them were in critical condition.

She sighed and looked at him "He's taking a break from the meeting, it'll start in five minutes. You can sit somewhere and I'll come back for you." 

He sighed and took the paper from her hands, she looked confused for a moment before he pointed to a little notice next to the paper. 

As he began walking towards one of the waiting couches he turned around quickly "Oh! What's your name?" Because he never knew if she could take Bruce and run away from the building.

She smiled and showed her I.D. badge "Maria Hill.” 

_____________________

Five minutes later, James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes was standing in front of a rolly whiteboard in the official meeting room with a bunch of other government agents. A minute passed before Maria Hill finally showed up with a young child sleepily glued to her hip. 

“Agent Hill, what the hell is that?” Fury calmly asked her. She patted his shoulder and he looked up tiredly, she whispered something in his ear and made a gesture towards Rhodey. She placed him down and Bruce handed the note to Rhodey.

He gave Bruce the same reaction that Maria did and looked at her. She smirked at him and he spoke to Bruce “Are you sure they can’t get anyone else?” The little boy nodded and Rhodey turned to face the rest of the people. “I’m afraid I have to cut this meeting short.” He exclaimed. Fury raised his eyebrows “Any particular reason why?” Rhodey showed the note

“The Avengers need some extra help, so I’m going to help.” he mumbled. Fury sighed and said a quick ‘Dismissed’ to the rest of the board. Rhodey picked up the yawning Bruce Banner and grabbed his flashlight. Before they left Bruce mumbled a little “That equation’s wrong.”

Rhodey turned his head towards Bruce and the boy pointed to the whiteboard. “That equation on the whiteboard is wrong.” He brought the two of them over to the white board and handed Bruce a marker, curiosity spreading over his face, the boy grabbed it and rubbed away a part of the complicated equation and rewrote the correct formula.

“Right…” Rhodey responded once Bruce put the marker away. As they began to leave the conference room Rhodey began asking Bruce how he got there. “I climbed down the stairs.” 

Concerned, the man replied “What do you mean you walked down the stairs? You walked down the whole tower?” Bruce yawned and nodded “Nothing was working.” Around the same time the lights began to flicker for a couple of seconds before finally turning back on. 

___________________

Rhodey left the elevator worried over his friends only to be fronted by four children. “What the f-” He started to say before the children realized he arrived and made eye contact with him. “Are you Rhodey?” Asked a little boy who suspiciously looked a lot like Tony. 

He nodded and another boy with braided blonde hair gasped “What happened to Bruce!” The little boy turned and Rhodey placed him down onto the floor. He limped over to the kitchen mumbling ‘Fell’ before grabbing a water bottle from the counter and sitting on the couch to hopefully sleep.

Another blonde child, one much skinnier and smaller, spoke up “I’ll go tell Natasha!” And scurried around the corner. A couple seconds later loud thudding could be heard and the other boy came back and gestured to Rhodey “Come on!” 

He looked around the floor, wondering where the rest of the Avengers were. As he walked around the hallway and into the dining room he discovered that the insistent pounding was coming from a closed door, he could hear Pepper shouting from the other side. 

He tapped on the door and the pounding stopped. He could hear Natasha on the other side now. “Rhodey? Is that you?” The man responded and tried looking around for the other Avengers, “Is this what I had to leave my meeting for? Where is everybody?” 

The other side of the door was quiet for a moment before Pepper spoke “They’re outside on the floor somewhere, we’ve been stuck in here for a couple of hours. I promise if you get us out we’ll explain everything.” 

Rhodey’s eyes widened as he realized the children hanging around the front of the elevator probably were his teammates and friends. He tried to open the door and once he figured out the door really was stuck he shouted over the other side of the door.

“Hang on! I’ll go get Tony’s toolbox!” He ran off before tripping on said toolbox on the floor of the dining hall.

The boys realized Rhodey fell and ran over to check on him, except Bruce who had fallen asleep to a well deserved nap. 

Rhodey sat up against the wall and took a minute to process the whole situation. “Holy shit.”


End file.
